Sam Berman scored a hat-trick as Eire began their Below-20 World Championship marketing campaign with a convincing 55-15 win over Italy in Pool B.
The Irish ran in 5 first-half tries in Cape City to carry a 31-10 lead.
Italy, who misplaced to Eire by one level on this 12 months’s Six Nations, took an early lead as Lorenzo Elettri’s transformed strive cancelled out Danny Sheahan’s unconverted opener.
The Italians prolonged their lead by way of Martino Pucciariello’s penalty however from there it was one-way visitors.
Luke Murphy and Evan O’Connell crossed earlier than centre Berman, who has simply signed for Ulster’s academy alongside Irish fly-half Jack Murphy, acquired two tries to place Willie Faloon’s facet right into a commanding half-time lead.
Luca Bellucci capitalised on Sean Edogbo’s yellow card shortly after the restart however Berman crossed within the forty eighth minute to finish his hat-trick.
Centre Finn Treacy grabbed Eire’s seventh strive earlier than alternative Sean Naughton accomplished the rout with quarter-hour left to play.
Eire are again in motion on Thursday (13:00 BST) towards Georgia, who misplaced 35-11 to Australia of their opening match.
Eire: B O’Connor; D Colbert, F Treacy, S Berman, H McLaughlin; J Murphy, O Coffey; J Boyd, D Sheahan, P Bell, A Spicer, E O’Connell (capt), S Edogbo , M Flynn, L Murphy
Replacements: S Smyth, E Calvey, A Sparrow, J McKillop, B Ward, J O’Riordan, S Naughton, H Gavin
Italy: M Belloni; M Scalabrin, F Zanandrea, N Bozzo, L Elettri; M Pucciariello, M Jimenez; S Pellicioli, N Gasperini, D Ascari, M Midena, G Milano, C Zucconi, L Bellucci, J Botturi (capt)
Replacements: V Siciliano, F Gentile, F Pisani, T Redondi, N Casartelli, L Casilio, S Brisighella, P de Villiers
